Nagaland Tribal Movement: A Political Analysis

Abstract: Naga tribal movement has been gradual and regular developments, which lead to its
momentum as it is today. Many of the scholars related Naga Movement and their struggle for
self-identity hold that this does not mean that the Nagas’ intense love and attachment for their
homeland (also called ‘mother land’ by the Nagas), did not play a crucial role. On the other
hand the Nagas’ love for their homeland and their traditional attitude of self-reliance and
struggle for self-identity and freedom lead to the emergence of Naga movement. In this article,
“Nagaland Tribal Movement: A Political Analysis,” the writer brings out the factors that lead to
the Naga tribal movement particularly its political and social factors and analyzes its further
development.

Key words: Naga Movement, tribes, Naga tribes, Nagas, Nagaland, political history, Ahoms,
British Government, Naga Hills, North East Frontier.

Introduction
The emergence of Naga tribal movement was not merely an accident, though it was a gradual
and regular development. This does not, means that the Nagas’ intense love and attachment for
their homeland (also called ‘mother land’ by the Nagas), did not play a crucial role. In fact the
Nagas’ love for their homeland and their traditional attitude of self-reliance and freedom, the
pride to preserve their unique identity, and not to be under the control and authority from outside
in any circumstances, did prove to be the essential assets for their struggle for self-identity and
self-government. It should be noted that in order to understand the emergence of Naga tribal
movement, we must understand its political history and analyze its subsequent development.

The Naga Tribe

The word ‘Naga’ is a generic term that comprises various tribes with different but more or less
allied cultures. They belong to the mongoloid race. It is spread all over the world and is found in
places as far as China and South America (Vashum, 2000). The exact number of tribes included
within the Naga nation is debatable. According to the ‘Naga National Rights and Movement’ a
publication brought out by the Publicity and Information Department of the Naga National
Council in 1993, eighty-four tribes are listed as belonging to the Naga nation of which twenty-
seven are from Myanmar (Hongray, 2019).

The tribes included within the Naga nation keep changing because some smaller tribes unite
together to form larger unit, or sometimes sub-tribes. The major tribes of Nagaland are Angami,
Ao, Chakhesang, Chang, Khiamniungan, Konyak, Lotha, Phom, Pochury, Rengma, Sangtam,
Sumi, Yimchunger, Zeliang and Rongmei. Apart from the Nagas, there are also other tribes and
people living in Nagaland. Kuki, Kachari, Garo and Gorkhalis have settled in Nagaland for some
generations (NBSE, 2015).

A Brief Naga Political History

The historical account of the Nagas is no adequate in the intervening centuries. Ptolemy, the
historian, made a brief mention of them in the second century. We have of the Hindu kings of
Kamrup between the fourth and the twelfth centuries but are silent about the Nagas. But the
chronicles of the Ahom kings – Buranjis as they are called – throw some light on the Nagas’
relation with the Ahoms. There were frequent clashes between the Ahoms and the Nagas, but on
the whole the Ahoms were able to keep the bordering tribes under their control.

In the early nineteenth century, however, the Ahoms kingdom started weakening and the
Burmese invasion in 1816 gave it a shattering blow. The Nagas took advantage of the political
confusion to throw off the Ahom yoke, and reverted to their favorite making of predatory raids
into the plains of Assam (Singh, 1977:10-11). In 1826, in the first Anglo- Burmese war British
defeated Burma and annexed Assam, the Colonial Government had embarked on consolidating
the boundaries of this newly acquired vast territories. In the same year, the treaty of ‘yandabo’
was signed between the British Government and the king of Ava of Burma. According to this
treaty Burmese were not supposed to interfere into the affairs of Assam and this treaty had great
impact on the tribes of North East India. The British became the de facto guardian of the whole
region by the terms of peace treaty (Gosh, 1982:81-83). After attaining power in Assam, the next
step of the British was progressively annexing more borderlands and extending their own
boundaries.
Among the different tribes of North East, Nagas were the most warlike tribe and their
topography, history, population and villages were unknown to the British (Yonuo,1974:70-71).
There were number of reasons which compelled the British to come into contact with the Nagas
and hold their authority over them. As Dr. Ashikho explains, there are five major factors, which
influenced the British Government to penetrate into the Naga areas. First was that the top priority
to security and safety of Indian borders with focus to secure North East Frontier border because
they wanted to control over the Himalayan territories from Tibet to Burma. Secondly, the Nagas
frequently raided on the plains of Assam and Manipur which compelled the British to establish
their control over the territory of Naga Hills. Third was to establish trade with the king Gambir
Singh of Manipur business agreement were made and the Naga territory was adjacent to the
Manipur so it was essential for them to control over Naga Hills. In order to enhance trade
relation with Manipur British needed to construct a road, which provided direct link from Assam
to Manipur and the Naga Hills came on their way, which was the fourth reason. Fifthly, when the
king of Manipur wanted to extend his empire over the Naga areas British felt that Gambir Singh
would conquest the Naga Hills permanently (Mao, 1992:16-17).

Nevertheless, over a hundred years ago, Naga ancestors, who have been living fiercely
independent and self-sufficient in a world of peace with them, had to understand the idea of
national (ethnic) self-determination (NSF, 2019). The Naga national movement is basically an
ethnic one wherein the Nagas’ struggle in aspiring to constitute an independent nation-state for
themselves, that is, for the several ethnically related tribal groups which had come together and
recognized themselves as ‘Nagas’ or ‘Naga’ (Vashum, 2000: 57).

The Naga Club

Many scholars and Naga nationalists trace the origins of the first political consciousness among
Nagas to the establishment of the Naga Club in 1918. It was formed mostly by those Nagas who
had gone to France during the First World War (1914-1918) as a part of the Labour Corps.
According to the colonial history, the British Government recruited a number of laborers and
porters from the Naga tribes (Hongray, 2019:19). On their return, having seen the world, they
began to share a vision of a collective Naga Voice. This provided the socio-political foundation
for the Naga nationalist movement which undertook the first written political statement in 1929,
wherein, the status and position of the Nagas as a distinct peoples and an independent Nation
was clearly laid before the world in their Memorandum submitted to Indian Statutory
Commission appointed by the British Government more popularly known as the Simon
Commission (NSF, 2019).

As a result, the enactment of British-India Act of 1935, the most comprehensive legislation
leading to the liberation of the Indian sub-continent from British rule and to declare all Naga
areas as “Excluded areas” in 1936 (Anand, 1980:38), in the background of the British own
experience where they could never subjugate a large majority of Naga areas under their colonial
rule for over a hundred years. How India ever since its independence in 1947, perpetuated a
cycle of historical tale and state sponsored atrocities against the Nagas is all together a different
issue (NSF, 2015).

Creation of the State of Nagaland

The Naga, being institutionally, culturally and racially different from the dominant communities
of India had always been independent until the Indians enslaved them after they got independent
from British (Anand, 1980:80-82). Naga leaders rejected that some of their land, which was
under a special dispensation during British colonial rule, could simply pass on to Indian hands at
the end of the British colonial rule. In the 1950s it turned into the Indo-Naga armed conflict.
Subsequently, in 1963, the Government of India created the state of Nagaland as a sixteenth full-
fledged state of the Indian Union (Baruah, 2005:98).

The idea of Naga nationhood gained momentum in the 1950s. The plebiscite of 1951, when
volunteers of the Naga National Council went to far-flung villages to collect thumb prints of
every Naga to announce that the Nagas want independence ‘emotionally integrated the various
Naga tribes. The sixteen points’ agreement was the result of an impasse. It had become evident
that under no circumstances would the Indian government concede to the Naga demand for
sovereignty and the Naga movement had reached a dead end. Some Nagas took stock of the
situation and resolved that ‘even if independence was not possible, the land, identity and
individuality of the Naga people should never be compromised.’ The result was the agreement
that led to the creation of Nagaland in 1963, which gave the Nagas worth and significance in the
eyes of the world’ (NPCC, 2000).

Political conflict: Voice of complex

The Naga disturbances are unique in having an almost entirely political foundation. There was
no economic exploitation of the Naga tribes, no interference with their religious practices, or any
attempt to change their social structure (Singh, 1977:88). Nagas systematically propagated that
Nagaland was never a part of India, that it was an independent territory between India and
Burma, and that after the withdrawal of the British the Nagas had ipso facto become
independent.

The Naga leaders, both underground and over ground, are united in their “desire” to have the
bordering Naga-inhabited areas of Assam and Manipur integrated with Nagaland. However, in
the face of Naga history and territoriality there is little doubt that Nagas have developed a strong
sense of themselves as a collectivity (Baruah, 2005:100); process of particularizing, or
“tribalising,” became the prime reason for the Naga movement’s fragmentation into rivaling
factions (Wouters, 2018) though Naga Nationalist Organization has been reiterating this demand
every now and then. Hence, the sufferings caused to the people by the activities of the
underground within the Nagas and the consequent operations which had to be undertaken by the
Security Forces produced the natural reaction (Singh, 1977: 99-108). As a result, there was a
revolution against violence and a longing for a peace.

Though the Nagas are trying to overcome the problems, with the passage of time, as people are
under different administrations, it is increasingly becoming difficult. The factional fighting
resulting in killings of fellow Nagas leading to further widening of the distance between different
groups. The majority of the Nagas feel that it will be their best interest if the different factions
come together and put up a united effort for achieving their long cherished goal.

Conclusion
The Naga tribe despite the fact that it has different customs, languages, and historians and
anthropologists have observed that all Nagas are of mixed origins marked by commonness in
their institutions, social structures, polity and oral traditions. Hence, the Naga desire for a
homeland that would bring together all Nagas into one political unit can come into being only at
the expense of Manipur, as well as Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. Key to political settlement is
the recognition on the part of all parties that there is an inherent crisis of territorial identity in the
Northeast India. Such recognition will have to occur within the framework of a process that the
Nagas can see as reconciliation, among themselves, with their neighbors and with the Indian
government which Baruah describes as the development of jointly constructed understandings of
the Nagas to form the basis for shared assumptions about reality.
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